Politics in America, a One Party System?

There’s been a lot of talk recently in the media about the 2016 presidential race. Candidates from both sides of the aisle as well as some independents have already started to place bids for a stake in the race for office, this is how politics in America is carried out, but has it become a one party system?

In this country it is widely established that the United States is a two party system, each catering to different ends of the political spectrum and independents filling in the middle ground. Although, it is also a widely established idea that the only viable way of running for election to the presidency is through one of the two aforementioned parties. To put it simply without the support of one of these two political factions the likelihood of success is all but nonexistent.

The reason for this is because only the Democratic and Republican parties possess the necessary funds and brand recognition to effectively turn out large numbers of voters. This coupled with the popular notion that voting for a third party is like throwing it away leads to little interest in candidates that fall outside the bounds of either major party. Today the Democratic party represents a progressive and socially liberal agenda while the Republican party represents traditional values and fiscally conservative agenda. It is through these two groups that a healthy balance of political representation is provided, or is it? While there are definitely clear distinctions that can be drawn between the two and the two will likely never agree on certain issues it can be argued that they differ only slightly from each other. So is this politics in America, but is it really a one party system?

Once upon a time during the earliest days of the republic there existed two different political approaches to how the small new nation would function, those were the federalists and the anti-federalists. The federalists believed in a strong federal government with the power to collect taxes and regulate aspects of everyday life for the citizenry. The anti-federalists weary of the corruption they had suffered at the hands of British rule opposed the idea of a strong central government, preferring a laissez-faire attitude towards governance and politics.

During this time there were two completely separate approaches available for a man to choose from. The two sides agreed on some things and disagreed on others but at a fundamental level they offered two different ideologies to choose from. One in which the government had little to no interference in the lives of its citizens and one in which its primary business dealt with them. As is common knowledge in the end, the federalists won out and a strong central government was established. Afterwards, there was still a strong presence of those who felt that the government had little business interfering. The citizenry saw people rise to prominence in areas where voters agree with this fashion of rule and the balance between the two methods of state remained as such. However, as time wore on, this eventually changed. It stopped being a concern of whether or not government should intervene but how it should; until all, at once, citizens one day woke up in a self proclaimed two party system that purported to be a fair and equal representation of the variety of styles to choose from. In actuality, however, it was nothing more than two groups who believed in the exact same form of big government with each supporting its own definition of government mandated morality and politics.

There is no longer any choice to be made among citizens in the contemporary field of American politics. All of the political say is delegated by parties that can offer no more variety of democracy then a Fascist state. The only difference is that in the United States one has the opportunity to vote on which set of moral principles are followed for that term, but not for any real change in policy, governance or politics. While this may change if Americans are able to wake up and learn that there currently is no real choice among political styles of Republican rule, that outcome at least currently is unlikely. Is this the the fate of politics in America, has it become a one party system?